A few developments on the NAEP front over the past few weeks:

• The Department of Education cancelled the national test of 17-year-olds.
• NCES commissioner Peggy Carr was placed on administrative leave.
• Mark Schneider, who ran the Institute for Educational Sciences in the previous Trump administration was asked about this situation by “the 74.”  They reported that “he’d prefer the next commissioner to have state-level experience and to be more ‘critical of these big research houses’ like ETS, which has held NAEP contracts for roughly 40 years and just won another competition in January. “
• Liam Knox just reported that the NCES has “closer to five than 10” employees following this week’s mass layoffs at the Department of Education.
• Update: Politico reports that the Institute of Educational Sciences is down to a single employee.

It almost seems like irrelevant small potatoes at this point, but one imagines that ETS may lose some amount of its NAEP-related revenues despite decisions to scrub references to DEI from their public-facing materials.

The College Board messed up a recent administration of the SAT. On March 8, tests were submitted at 11:00 sharp, whether or not test takers had actually finished.  This was possible because the SAT is delivered digitally nowadays.  Affected test takers were given a refund and a voucher for a free re-test.  The incident attracted some media attention: Scott White wrote an article about it for Forbes (which has been viewed 53,000 times in three days) and a few local outlets also ran items.  But the College Board’s screw up isn’t really the point of this post.

I just want to mention that this story highlights one reason why I write so much about standardized tests of English.

When the College Board messes up, it makes headlines. Media outlets report on it, people discuss the screw up, and there’s some amount of accountability. There is often consideration of how certain groups are more affected when a test administration is bungled.

But when English proficiency tests are badly run it gets very little attention. Sometimes no attention at all. I might roll out of bed and write something on LinkedIn while waiting for my morning coffee.  But not always.

I’ll give you an example.

In April of 2023 ETS stopped accepting the Aadhaar Card for admission to TOEFL test centers in India.  But for 13 months, the front page of the official TOEFL website for India still proclaimed that “ETS is temporarily accepting the Aadhaar Card as primary ID until further notice.”  The page also linked to a copy of the TOEFL Bulletin which repeated this incorrect statement.

For 13 months, students registered for the test, paid the hefty fee, showed up at their local test center… and were turned away for not having proper ID.  ETS kept their registration fees.

My friends at ETS might argue that the correct information was listed elsewhere, or that it was included in emails sent before test day.  And, yes, a majority of students probably got the correct instructions eventually.  But the incorrect information was very prominently displayed.  For a very long time.

Had something like that happened in the USA during an administration of the SAT it might have made the New York Times.  But since it involved an English test it attracted no attention whatsoever.  For 13 months!

That’s today’s point.

There’s a good reason why this sort of thing doesn’t get any attention.  Needless to say, writing about English tests doesn’t pay the mortgage.

Since problems with English testing will never be closely examined, it is incumbent upon testing firms to strive to do the best they can for their communities. No one is looking over your shoulder… but you STILL have to try as hard as you can to deliver for your test takers.